Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
By John Stewart It was bad, but it could have been much worse. Just as the celebrated Cyber Monday online-shopping frenzy was gearing up to full blast, PayPal Holdings Inc.’s payment service, a major processor for e-commerce, began hiccupping. Merchants reported problems with processing orders and customers complained about long …
Read More »ACI Study Suggests the Heralded Increase in Online Fraud Attempts Is Happening
Veterans of the e-commerce, risk-control and payment card industries all have been predicting that fraudsters will turn their attention to card-not-present channels as the U.S. shifts to EMV chip card payments and thus makes counterfeiting at the point of sale harder to commit. Now a new study by ACI Worldwide …
Read More »Flawed Policies Weaken Passwords, Though Online Retailers Are Doing Better
With nearly half of all holiday shopping expected to be conducted online, attention is turning to the first line of defense against fraud: the humble password. As it turns out, this bulwark isn’t nearly as strong as it could be, according to a study released Tuesday by Dashlane Inc., a …
Read More »Square Will Soon Exit the Ranks of Unicorns, But Those Ranks Are Fast Expanding
Square Inc.’s official filing to go public means it will soon exit an exclusive club that’s becoming less exclusive by the month: the so-called unicorns, or privately held companies that are worth $1 billion or more. There are 143 such companies now, up from 123 in early August. Indeed, more …
Read More »Why PayPal Plans to Extend Its Fast-Growing Venmo Service Into Merchant Payments
Up to now, PayPal Holdings Inc.’s Venmo payments service has been strictly a mobile person-to-person product appealing largely to twenty-somethings, but within a year users will be able to pay with Venmo at PayPal merchants if the parent company’s plan works out as expected. PayPal disclosed Wednesday in its quarterly …
Read More »Gemalto Brings Its ‘Dynamic Code Verification’ To the Fight Against Card-Not-Present Fraud
With the coming of EMV chip card payments to the U.S. point of sale on Oct. 1, merchants, merchant acquirers and credit and debit card issuers are bracing for an expected boom in card-not-present (CNP) fraud. Countless processors, payment gateways and tech companies have announced products and services meant to …
Read More »Eye on Mobile: How the Phone Is Steadily Taking Over Online And P2P Payments
Two reports released Thursday point up the accelerating rate at which consumers are turning to a mobile device rather than a PC to pay an online merchant or another person. The news comes as major tech players like Apple Inc., Google Inc., PayPal Holdings Inc., and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. …
Read More »With Its Spree Commerce Buy, First Data Aims To Bolster Its Online Tech Foundations
Payment processor First Data Corp. has acquired Spree Commerce, a provider of open-source software for 45,000 e-commerce storefronts. The addition of Bethesda, Md.-based Spree could bolster First Data as it competes with processors and tech providers for more business in the fast-growing world of online retailing. “Spree is at the …
Read More »After Overstock, Klarna Looks To Add 50 to 60 U.S. Merchants By Year’s End
By Kevin Woodward Klarna, a Sweden-based payments company that enables consumers to take 14 days to pay for online purchases, says its deal announced Tuesday with Overstock.com is the first of many it expects to make with e-commerce retailers this year. Retailer Overstock.com sells a broad range of merchandise, and …
Read More »Separate But Tied Together: Why eBay Is Dropping Non-PayPal Payment Methods
By John Stewart PayPal Holdings Inc. and eBay Inc. went their separate ways just 45 days ago, but already the fallout from that split is beginning to make itself felt. EBay is telling sellers on its main online marketplaces that starting Sept. 27 it will stop supporting three electronic payment …
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